Waste handling is a significant problem in the world today. The Federal Environmental Protection Agency has identified used oil filters as hazardous waste and the disposal of used oil filters is quite restricted. Automobile dealerships, garages, and fast oil-changing stores are currently paying for the disposal of automobile oil and light truck oil filters by the volume. In order to reduce the volume of used filters, such businesses employ crushers for crushing the oil filter to reduce the filter disposal expense. Such oil filter crushers, however, make no attempt to recycle the components of the oil filter, nor to attempt to recoup the disposal expense of nonrecyclable components of the oil filter.
It is therefore a primary object of the present invention to provide an apparatus of a semiautomatic or automatic type, which separates the cap of the oil filter from the canister, permits removal of the used oil filter element, and which automatically separates the cap, oil filter element and canister while at the same time, crushing the oil filter element and the canister, subsequent to physical separation of the same.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide such automated severing, component crushing, and separating apparatus for automobile and light truck oil filters, which processes oil filters of varying diameter and axial length, which simultaneously crushes both the filter component and the canister, which facilitates the collection of used oil within the filter element, which is of relatively low cost, and which utilizes gravity in the component separation step.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide such apparatus, which secures the filter in place, severs the cap from the hollow cup like canister, which removes the filter canister axially from the filter element, which serially crushes the canister and filter element to reduce their volume, which effects gravity drop of the cap, crushed filter element and crushed metal canister into separate bins while collecting the oil released from the filter element within a pan, thereby permitting the metal components and the oil to be recycled, and the crushed filter element to be used for fuel in fossil power plants.